"How's your arm?" asked Con, who also looked more tired than usual.
"It's fine," he said. "Just a little stiff."
"We should look at it," said Rick.
"Don't bother," replied Joe. "I said it was fine." Rick was too tired to argue. Instead, he brushed the snow off the cold campfire, piled the last few pieces of driftwood on the charcoal, and made a fire. He roasted some meat for breakfast and-some more for lunch while Con boiled up some broth. As they ate, Rick noticed Joe used only his left hand and held his right arm stiff and straight.
"I'll pull the travois today," said Rick. "You should give that arm a rest."
"I'm fine," snapped Joe. "I can pull my weight."
"Then bend your arm," said Rick.
Joe started to bend his arm, then winced. "All right," he said with resignation. "You take the travois today, and I'll take it tomorrow."
"I should tend your arm again," said Con.
"Why bother?" replied Joe. "You've washed it and bandaged it. There's nothing more you can do, and it's tender right now. I'd rather you didn't touch it."
Con gave Joe a dubious look. "Are you sure?"
"I'm certain."
Con and Rick made Joe stay by the dying fire while they packed up camp. When everything was ready, they headed out. With food in their bellies and little or nothing to carry, they set a good pace initially, despite their fa-tigue. The sea beckoned them with the hope of rescue. They left the upland plain and entered the burnt remains of the forest. Ruined tree trunks spread to the horizon, standing like black obelisks in the snow. Trees littered the ground also. Fortunately, the fire had pruned them to crumbling, charred cylinders. Rick was able to drag the travois, which was loaded with little more than kindling, a few sticks of firewood, the frozen meat, and the tent, over the fallen trees without assistance. Still, the obstacles slowed them down. The sleepless night also began to take its toll. Their pace slackened to a slow trudge. The line of march stretched out, with Rick at the lead, Con in the middle, and Joe at the rear. They walked mechanically as their minds hazed over with fa-tigue. The landscape they passed through continued to change. They encountered mounds of flood debris, caked with frozen mud. The clearest path was close to the river, which flowed broader here, but sluggishly. The flood was long over, and the world was drying out and freezing. The snowfall was sporadic and light. The few streams they encountered were shallow and had mostly frozen over. Toward late morning, they came to a river bend and saw what they thought was a huge stack of driftwood. When they approached more closely, they realized the pile consisted of corpses weathered to bare bones. Thousands of animals had been washed up on the river-bank. Under other circumstances, Rick would have spent happy hours examining the skeletons. Instead, he looked at them with tired indifference. The only thing that caught his attention was a lone, thin nightstalker. It hopped feebly about the bones, scavenging for the last scraps of frozen flesh. The scrawny creature looked like a pale brown wraith and, like a ghost, it was indifferent to the living. Rick, Con, and Joe marched by without the scavenger's notice. They had become invisible again.
If Joe saw the nightstalker, he gave no sign of it. He walked silently, his face a dull mask to hide his pain. Though Joe tersely rebuffed Rick and Con's expressions of concern, they grew more and more worried about him as the morning passed. At lunch, Joe barely ate. After-ward, his slow pace slackened to a shamble. After a few, painfully slow miles, Rick halted. Snow had begun to fall more heavily, and Joe was so far behind he was only a shadowy gray shape. Rick cursed himself for his lack of attention. Con caught up with Rick and slumped down on a log, her face drawn. Together they waited for Joe. He approached with an unsteady shuffle. Each step seemed to require painful effort. His face was flushed. Despite the cold, he was perspiring.
"We're making camp now," said Rick.
"No, no," said Joe in a weak voice. "It's too early. I'm ... I'm fine." Con took off her sock mitten and felt Joe's brow. "You're burning with fever!" She looked into his eyes and saw pain and growing confusion.
"I'm. . . I'm sorry," said Joe in a slow, tiny voice. "I let you down." His eyes welled with tears of frustration as snowflakes melted on his hot, sad face.
33
"SEPSIS," RICK SAID TO CON IN A HUSHED VOICE, AS THEY
looked for a site to pitch the tent. Joe sat on a burnt log nearby, staring blankly at the snow.
"What?"
"Blood poisoning," said Rick. "Who knows what germs that thing had in its mouth."
"What can we do?"
"Keep him comfortable and let his body fight the infection. That's about all."
"Will he be all right?"
"I don't know," said Rick. When he saw Con's reaction, he quickly added, "Joe's tough. If anyone can beat this, he can."
Rick spotted the black hulk of a huge toppled tree in the distance and suggested that they erect the tent there. "We can build our campfire by the tree trunk and use it to reflect heat into the tent opening. It will serve as a windbreak,' too."
As Rick dragged the travois to the tree, Con led Joe to the site. He no longer pretended that he was not ill, but passively let her support him as he shuffled through the snow. His mind was succumbing to the fever, and he scarcely knew what was happening. Rick and Con quickly erected the tent and made it as comfortable as possible, though they had little to work with. The travois's small platform of woven sticks was cov-ered with the hide poncho to serve as a bed. Con cradled Joe's head on her lap and patted the perspiration from his brow with her sleeve. Rick used the remaining wood to build a fire just a few feet from the tent opening. Only the kindling was left.
"I've got to find some driftwood," he said, handing Joe's spear to Con before grabbing his own. "I'll be back as soon as possible."
"Okay," said Con distantly.
Rick did not reflect on the irony of looking for driftwood in the middle of a forest. The only unburnt fuel was wood that had been in the river before the fire struck. Every dirt-caked branch he found on the riverbank was a rare find. He walked half a mile before he accumulated a small armload. He returned, added wood to the blaze, then cradled Joe while Con went to the river and tended to her needs. After Con left, Rick gently shook Joe until he opened his eyes. "Joe, I need to ask you something."
"What?" asked Joe faintly.
"Is there something about the island I should know? Some-thing you haven't told me?"
"The island?"
"Why didn't you want to go there?"
"Don't," whispered Joe.
"Don't what?"
"Don't let Con ..." Joe furrowed his brow in puzzlement and confusion.
"What about Con?"
Joe stared at Rick without comprehension. "You're not Con." After a minute, he closed his eyes and returned to a fitful sleep.
Con returned with washed rags and a few sticks of drift-wood. "There's not much wood out there," she said. "How are we going to keep him warm?"
"Look for driftwood farther downriver and hope we get lucky," replied Rick. "I was stupid to leave the bedding. He would have been much warmer with it."
"That bedding filled an entire travois!" said Con. "I'll tell you the same thing you told me—stop blaming yourself. You made the best decision for the situation. You didn't know Joe would get hurt."